Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @09:57PM
from the old-serpent dept.

smooth wombat writes "A newly discovered fossil seems to suggest that snakes evolved on land rather than in the water. The size of the fossil is unknown but it wasn't more than three feet long according to Hussam Zaher of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
It's the first time scientists have found a snake with a sacrum -- a bony feature supporting the pelvis -- he said. That feature was lost as snakes evolved from lizards, and since this is the only known snake that hasn't lost it, it must be the most primitive known, he said."

It was a fossilized NAZI PLANE, thus proving that the Third Reich had discovered time travel, but it was too late to change the course of the war. Of course, one S.L. Jackson killed all the nazis and their snakes and made it back to present day.

That's my SOAP 2 script. Feel free to use it royalty free, so long as I get to see the movie.

Coelacanth is a family name, not a species of fish (like "ape" rather than "homo sapien"). There are members of the family coelacanth around today, but they are not "primitive" members of the family: they are the modern members of it.

Having a feature makes you more primitive than not having a feature?
Losing features is entirely consistent with genetic science. Gaining new features is apparently accepted in the scientific community, but doesn't make any sense to me.

All this is very good and important as we fill the evolutionary gaps. While it will never be enough to convince the 'god did it' crowd it does make the rest of us feel better seeing the evidence pile up. But my original thought when reading this story was wondering when scientists will be able to determine whether lawyers are more closely related to snakes or to slime molds. I'm crossing my fingers for slime molds. I like snakes.

If I had mod points, I'd help reverse the idiot who marked you troll, but if wishes were fishes...
One of things I find interesting is that, 99 people out of 100, they'd say it was an apple and would even remember the Bible saying it was an apple, but it's simply stated as "the fruit" and the word used might not even mean fruit as we know it. The earliest manuscripts actually show a mushroom. ^_^ Eat a mushroom for cosmic knowledge? Sounds plausible enough... It's one of those cases of Biblical fanon [wikipedia.org] like t

Since I don't believe in karma anyway, I don't mind losing it for posting an unpopular view: Perhaps this discovery gives credence to the accuracy of the Bible.

The serpent in the Biblical account of Genesis 3 was apparently a very different creature from modern day snakes. Besides the fact that the serpent spoke aloud (Genesis 3:1 - generally accepted to be Satan speaking through the serpent), it must have had some other means of locomotion besides crawling. The curse upon the serpent is recorded in Genesis 3:14 as such:
And the Lord God said unto the serpent, "Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life."

"Eating dust" is generally accepted to mean that the serpent is cursed to have its face on the ground, not that its diet would actually consist of dirt.

The creature, named Najash rionegrina, is "a fantastic animal," said Jack Conrad, a researcher at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and co-curator of an upcoming exhibit on lizards and snakes....The creature's name comes from a Hebrew word for snake and the Rio Negro province of Argentina, where the discovery took place.

Oddly enough, we were discussing this article in class this evening (anthropology/hamartiology). Apparently there are rabbinical traditions that say the serpent in Gene

More likely the famous Genesis story incorporates a folk explanation for why some snakes have vestigal traces of walking apparatus.

If you step back and look at it, most of Genesis consists of stories explaining why things are (and ought to be!) the way they are. It's a very common motif in mythologies and legendary histories from all over the world.

The yarn about breeding sheep in front of striped staves to produce striped sheep, and the thrice-repeated "that's not my wife, that's...uhm... my sister" meme (one guy fell for it twice!) should be all the hints you need that the book isn't a useful guide to biology or history.

> Historian Dr. John Montgomery wrote, and I quote: "Modern archeological research has confirmed again and again the reliability of New Testament geography, chronology, and general history"

Strangely enough, the geography, chronology, and general history of The Da Vinci Code are also reliable, but only an idiot would take the whole thing seriously. The Iliad has also provided a few surprises about geography, demographics, and political entities in the Bronze Age, but no one concludes from that that the Ol

Evidence? The OT prophecy was for a lamb, the NT said they nailed up a man. Unless you think humans can be mistaken for a flock of sheep...ummm, never mind.

Flock, lamb, sheperd, father, son, children, "thou shall", "thou shall not", brother, sister, are all words used heavily in the bible, they are used in the context of describing man's relationship with God and each other. Coincidently, they could also be seen as describing and justifying the natural social hierarchy found in many mammals, including th

Ok. Go and read the part about the virgin birth again. First of all, it isn't a virgin: Matthew used the wrong word. Second of all, it refers to a woman that actually has a kid right there in the same book: the prophecy was about something that already happened, not about any later figure (Jesus or otherwise). And, amusingly, the thing that it was supposed to be a sign of doesn't actually happen (some squabble over warring kings). All of the supposed grand prophecy in that part of the Scripture is actu

There are many questionable translations... even among the ten commandments, the edict against killing, for instance. The word used in the origional text much better translates as "murder" - there were separate words for killing as a general action, and even for killing in battle, which obviously old testimate God did not mind.

What makes you think that the bible predates the actions of Cyrus? Seriously.There's much documentation of errors and outright changes in bible stories. There's also, if you really care to dig, indications that at least some bible stories are actually adaptations of older (and pagan!) stories. Evidently they were popular and were incorporated into the old testament.

As for "believing" the bible as "the truth": do you stone your neighbor for growing two crops side by side? If not, why not? (Since we are disc

The children of Adam and Eve intermarried. This includes Cain and Seth, and perhaps Abel before he was murdered. The Bible doesn't specifically mention it, but we can extrapolate it because there were no other humans on the earth at the time besides their parents. I see no problem with this.

I have a question for the evolutionists though. How on earth did sexual reproduction ever evolve? Besides the jokes about recreation versus procreation (grow up), can anyone explain it to me?

I have a question for the evolutionists though. How on earth did sexual reproduction ever evolve? Besides the jokes about recreation versus procreation (grow up), can anyone explain it to me?

A life form that reproduces asexually (as is believed about the simplest, earliest life forms) would have to produce a life form that is capable of reproducing both sexually and asexually. This intermediate step is necessary unless you believe both male and female life forms evolved simultaneously.

BTW, I've taken your duplicated points and addressed them in single cohesive blocks.

But seriously now, believing the Bible as literaly true means I belive Jesus died for my sins and that I am no longer under the law given by God through Moses.

That alone seems disingenuous. So a single line in the new testament invalidates the rest of both books? Cool rationalization, but one that more than one has pointed out to the church of your choice as the reason for that church to not exist. BTW, note that that part

Comparing the quoted date for the fossil and the often quoted date for Genesis, the snake in TFA would appear to have died and fossilised millions of years before Genesis, so obviously they are different snakes.

I can only speculate that the Genesis snake is an ancestor of the snake with hips, this makes some sense, a talking snake would take millions of years to evolve, it would also tie in nicely with the slim evidence we have of a two legged Genesis snake.

The difference is that you are comparing history with prophecy. History, as recorded in the Bible, should generally be accepted literally. Prophecy often has both a literal part and a metaphorical part. If you're interested in examples, just ask.

There are older sea-living snakes that had legs - by about 9 or so million years, according to TFA. From this, we have several options, including that snakes evolved in the seas, came up on land and then LATER lost their legs. (This is an option NOT suggested by either of the two leading theories, but would seem to fit the facts the best.)

The second option - the current leading theory - is that snakes evolved in the sea, lost their legs there, and that the snake found on land was some kind of genetic throwback, a branch that had nothing to do with the main line of snakes. This theory assumes that this find is NOT more primitive than the older fossils, but that the older fossils are more primitive by virtue of being considerably older.

It does raise a number of problems, though, in that although there were sea-based snakes that did have legs, there is no evidence whatsoever that snakes ever evolved in the seas. The only reason this was seriously considered, in recent times, was that a precursor had to exist with legs, and the only snake fossils with legs that were known were all from aquatic deposits.

The next-best theory is that snakes evolved on land and migrated back into the sea at a time when they still had legs. Migrations back into the ocean have happened - the Manatee had a common land ancestor with a Giraffe, and Cetaceans are believed to have evolved from a land-based fox-like creature. Such "reverse" migrations, then, have occurred before - probably quite a lot.

The problem here is that, as I mentioned, the aquatic fossils are almost ten million years older. That's a LOT of time to account for, as it would require land snakes to have existed equally as long, plus enough extra to have a common ancestor that had evolved far enough to be identifiably a snake, plus as much additional time as needed to have forked off an aquatic branch of the family.

No land-based snake fossils with legs have been found for the timeframe required. This doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot - snakes don't fossilize that well, not many people hunt fossil snakes, the odds of a discoverer realizing what they had AND publishing that fact are low, and since the aquatic theory held supreme, not many people were looking for those fossils in locations that would have been land at the time.

On the other hand, it is extremely poor science to draw conclusions from evidence that is merely assumed to exist of an event that may never have happened at all. It is very easy to prove some pet theory, if you only ever have to assume the evidence might exist to do so.

It is wrong to say that this recent find has helped anyone understand the evolution of snakes. The strongest statement that can be made is that it helps to establish where to look and what to look for.

Could you please point me to, or directly quote from the bit in the article which states there are sea snake fossils nine million years older than Najash rionegrina. Multiple readings of the linked article and I just can not find it. Does kind of pull the rug out from under your next seven paragraphs.

Nice article and discussion on this over at Pharyngula [scienceblogs.com].

I seem to remember reading somewhere about a lizard with no legs. NOt technically a snake, because it has too much of the structure needed for legs. Wouldn't said lizard be even more primitive (it has shoulders)? Or are snakes descended from other, non-lizardly folk? Anyone else ever heard of this?